The largest tropical lake in the world, Titicaca is enormous. It covers an area of 8000 square kilometres and is 170 kilometres long and 65 kilometres wide. Along its seemingly endless shores and on its many green islands, its Quechua and Aymara inhabitants fish its bountiful waters or farm its fertile soils in the manner of their ancestors - the builders of countless archaeological sites scattered in ruins across the entire region.
While for geologists Lake Titicaca is a result of plate tectonics, for the people of the Andes it is quite simply where the world began. The Inca creation legend tells how the Sun God rose from the lake and subsequently created the first Inca, Manco Capac, and his sister, Mama Ocllo. These two set about populating the Earth with the Sun´s chosen people, before beginning the long march north in search of their promised land, finally establishing their dynasty in the fertile valley between the Saphi and Tullumayu rivers which today we call Cusco.
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